Court of Directors

Related links

Required to meet a minimum seven times per year, it has five executive members from the Bank and up to nine non-executive members. All members of Court are appointed by the Crown. One of the non-executive members is selected by the Chancellor to chair Court.

Meeting minutes

From the foundation of the Bank in 1694 to the present day the Court of Directors has met on a regular basis to discuss a range of matters related to the administration and operations of the Bank. Up until May 1998 the meetings were held weekly, after which time they were held monthly.

The Financial Services Act (2012) requires the Bank’s Court of Directors to publish the minutes of its meetings. These are published, as required by statute, six weeks after the meeting to which they relate, or, if there is no further meeting within that period, then two weeks after the date of the next meeting.

Minutes available from 1694

Held in the Bank’s Archive, the minutes have been recorded and preserved since the first meeting of Court which was held on 27 July 1694 at Mercers Hall, London. Now available in digitised format, they can be accessed online up to the late twentieth century. We publish minutes with a lag of 20 years, in line with The National Archive’s best practice.

Some information has been redacted, for example, where it is personal in nature or related to customer business. These redactions will be removed after 84 years from the date of the last meeting in each volume and at the same time the indexes will also be released.